Monday, April 9, 2007

Clean Carbon Build-up from Engine

This tip came as a submission from one of our customers. I felt it was very informative and right on. I wanted to share it with you, as I believe it may help many of you out there. Thanks John for the tip.

"The best way to clean carbon build-up out of your engine is NOT to take the car out and run it as hard as you can. This only results in meetings with local law enforcement personnel, and doesn't do much for cleaning out carbon. If you really want to clean the carbon out of your engine follow these simple steps. Fill an empty soda bottle with water. Remove your air cleaner. Start your engine. While using one hand to control the throttle, trickle the water into the carb or throttle body with the other while holding your thumb over the bottle opening. Keep the engine rpm's up so that the engine doesn't die. Make sure that you don't pour the water in too fast! Water doesn't compress and if you pour too much water in, severe engine damage can result! White smoke from the exhaust is normal. If you have a port fuel injected car, you obviously won't be able to use this method, but I have had success with connecting a vacuum hose to a port at the base of the throttle body and sticking the other end of the hose into the bottle of water. The vacuum of the engine will suck the water in, creating the same effect. This will clean out even the most stubborn carbon, by 'steam cleaning' your cylinders. "

1 comment:

Actually, you might not want to run water into the engine at all! you might want to use an approved cleaning product, that contains ethanol and detergent. If you use straight water you have a very large chance of destroying engine parts and components, resulting in a much more expensive repair than you started with! - I recommend using seafoam for all of this.(ASE certified technician)